So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
Parallel translations
- WEB God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.
- KJV And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
- BSB And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
- ESV And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
- NASB Then God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
- NLT Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God blessed Noah and his sons and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. Creation's blessing is renewed in a fresh start.
Overview
This blessing echoes God's words to Adam, marking Noah as a kind of new beginning for humanity. The renewed creation mandate shows God's continued purpose for people to flourish and fill the earth. It testifies to God's grace in giving the human race a new start after judgment, a foretaste of the greater new creation in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Gen 1:28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
- Gen 9:7Be fruitful and multiply. Increase abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it.”
- Gen 8:17Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.”
- Gen 1:22God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
- Ps 128:3–4Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.
- Isa 51:2Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many.
- Gen 10:32These are the families of the sons of Noah, by their generations, according to their nations. The nations divided from these in the earth after the flood.
- Gen 2:3God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work of creation which he had done.
- Gen 24:60They blessed Rebekah, and said to her, “Our sister, may you be the mother of thousands of ten thousands, and let your offspring possess the gate of those who hate them.”
- Gen 9:19These three were the sons of Noah, and from these, the whole earth was populated.
- Ps 112:1Praise Yah! Blessed is the man who fears Yahweh, who delights greatly in his commandments.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
From the first promise that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent (3:15), through Abraham's blessing to all nations and Judah's coming ruler, Genesis sows every seed that flowers in Christ — the true offspring, the better Adam, the ram caught for Isaac.
How Genesis 9:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.